The same centuries again, at a slower pace and with the sources named
119 episodes indexed · 85 hours
Presented by Mark Selleck
Periods · The Bronze Age, Archaic Greece, The Persian Wars, Classical Greece, Philip and Alexander, The Hellenistic world, Greece under Rome
Themes · War Empire and colonies The polis Religion
Mark Selleck works through the archaic and classical centuries in roughly forty minutes an episode, stopping to say which ancient author a claim comes from. A hundred and seven numbered episodes reach the Ionian War.
Where to start. Episode 1; the run is chronological and the early ones are short.
I feel like…
ideas, belief and how a polis was ordered
stories, performance, art and ordinary lives
war and expansion
when it happens
how much time you have
Minoans and Mycenaeans c. 3000 - 1100 BC · 7
Prof. Eric Cline on archaeology and his book 1177 BC: the late Bronze Age world, the collapse that saw great civilisations disappear from the Aegean and Near East, and the evidence that helps explain it.
The Mycenaeans, who supplanted the Minoans to become dominant in the Aegean and on the Greek mainland, and the period that many Greek myths and epic poems can be seen to look back to.
The beginning of the Bronze Age in Greece, as bronze and other developments turned communities into more complex societies, and the modern rediscovery of two great civilisations linked to the tales of the ancient poets.
The Mycenaeans disappear with the rest of the Bronze Age world around the Mediterranean; many reasons are offered for the sudden fall, and the episode holds that none can explain it on its own.
Setting the stage before history: the land of Greece, what seems to have been taking place there in prehistory, human migrations, the ideas and technology that developed, and one common way items were dated.
The Minoans, recognised as one of the earliest civilisations in the Aegean and Europe: centred on Crete, they endured and recovered from a number of natural disasters before fading as another civilisation rose.
The series introduction: the host's motivations, the topic of Ancient Greece and the structure of the run, then the different types of sources and a little more detail on some ancient authors.
Dark Age and Archaic Greece 1100 - 480 BC · 7
Athens from a small settlement on a rocky outcrop over 5000 years ago, through the Bronze Age collapse it survived relatively intact, to Draco and Solon, looked back to as founders of changes toward democracy.
The unstable road to Athenian democracy: faction fighting, the tyranny of Peisistratus and his sons, the despotic rule of Hippias until his removal with Spartan help, and the institutions that evolved under Cleisthenes.
Corinth from its earliest times on the isthmus to the rule of the Bacchiadae clan, the first mainland tyranny under Cypselus, Periander counted among the seven sages, and the end of the tyranny in the third generation.
The institutions that made Sparta stand out, shaped partly by dealings with its neighbours, leading to one of the most militarised cities in Greece, one the ancients were fascinated by and some even admired.
The Greek world emerges from the dark ages into a re-birth with new advances refined for centuries; a correction notes the traditional date for the first Olympics is 776 BC, where the episode said 778.
Sparta comes into existence out of the Dark Ages through the union of surrounding villages and the conquering of nearby regions, and develops a unique social and political system far different from the rest of Greece.
After the collapse the Mycenaean palaces lie in ruins and the archaeological record shows regression and depopulation, though progress over time also appears, leading the Greek world back into the light.
The Persian Wars 499 - 449 BC · 30
An unscripted end-of-year chat with Steve of the Spartan History Podcast, focusing a great deal on the Greco-Persian Wars and touching on the periods before and after, with a few connection issues left in.
With Trevor Culley
Trevor Culley of the History of Persia Podcast on Persia's experience of the wars, its motivations and why it was ultimately unsuccessful, since most sources focus on the Greek experience.
An unscripted conversation with Steve of the Spartan History Podcast on the founding of democracy in Athens, whether Lycurgus was historical, and whether Athens or Sparta did most to defeat Persia; part 1 of 2.
The 2014 sequel 300: Rise of an Empire, centred on Artemisium and Salamis, compared with the ancient sources for what is well grounded, what is stretched, and where its creators wrote their own version.
The 2006 movie 300 set against the historical record: what it presents fairly accurately, what is its own interpretation, and which fanciful elements appear inserted for dramatic purposes with no basis in the record.
A look back at the 18 episodes on the Greco-Persian Wars, from the Ionian revolt through the two invasions, framed by Herodotus, who was born during the wars and later collected all he could.
Gelon rises through a series of tyrannies to control almost the entire east coast of Sicily and Syracuse; Carthage answers with an invasion of unprecedented size, and the two armies camp across from one another at Himera.
Alexander I of Macedon between Persia and Greece: his sister's marriage to a Persian governor suggests submission, yet as a friend of Athens he advises the Greeks while assisting Xerxes' march through his lands.
After Sardis and defeat at Ephesus the Ionian revolt spreads to Aeolia, the Hellespont, Caria and Cyprus by 497, until Persian armies retake western Anatolia; Ionia revolts again after Mycale.
Persia's side of defeat, asking why an army that size failed to capture Greece and whether equipment, training or reliance on various nations undid it, and how an empire left intact was affected.
After Salamis Xerxes withdraws home and leaves his most trusted general Mardonius to subjugate the rest of Hellas; Athens rejects his terms and once again takes refuge on Salamis.
At the turn to the Greek and Persian wars, a summary of the first 13 episodes from the first signs of human habitation in Greece, the host's podcasting experiences, and answers to listener questions.
Plataea: the Greek line, broken into three formations by the night withdrawal, meets an all-out Persian attack; Mardonios falls to a thrown rock, and the Hellenic league wins the largest engagement of the wars.
After Persia destroys Lydia, the fence-sitting Ionian Greeks meet the anger of Cyrus, a Lydian revolt is crushed, and a generation of tyranny and tribute later the Ionians revolt and attack Sardis.
Mycale, by tradition fought the same day as Plataea: Leotychidas, reluctant with a small fleet, sails east once the Athenians arrive, and the Persians beach their ships so a naval operation is decided on land.
Thrace as a crossroads for Persian campaigns at the turn of the 6th and 5th centuries, from the push into Scythian lands to the coastal engineering works for Xerxes' invasion, with Thracians later known as some of the best mercenaries.
The third player before the Greco-Persian Wars: the Persians, a relatively small group in the Zagros Mountains, expand under Cyrus the Great, absorb the Lydian Empire and create the largest empire the world had yet known.
Persia after Cyrus: Cambyses conquers Egypt and dies amid a crisis, a pretender holds power for seven months, and Darius, one of the conspiring nobles, becomes king, expands the empire and collides with the Greeks.
Salamis: with the fleet set to withdraw, Themistocles sends Xerxes a ruse bordering on treason, both openings of the straits appear blocked, and the outnumbered Greeks win as Persian ships foul one another.
Athens, occupied a second time, refuses Mardonius again and uses his offer to press Sparta, whose army turns out to be already marching north; the swelling Hellenic league emerges from the Citheron Mountains near Plataea.
After Plataea and Mycale: cities build monuments to thank the gods who assisted them, including a collective monument at Delphi, Pausanias turns on Thebes for Medizing, and the fleet clears Persian garrisons from the Hellespont.
The Ionian Revolt as prelude to the Greek and Persian wars: only Athens and Eretria answer the call, the campaign is foiled at Sardis, the Greeks are routed at Ephesus, and the revolt is defeated at Lade.
Between the invasions: Miltiades falls from favour, Persia faces revolts in Egypt and Babylon, Darius dies of an illness, and his son Xerxes assembles an army larger than anything before it in the ancient world.
After Thermopylae the Persians march through central Greece while Athens evacuates to Salamis; Xerxes takes a mostly deserted Acropolis, and the Hellenic league debates whether to depart or fight at Salamis.
Before the main battle: the Athenians kill the Persian cavalry commander, Pausanias deploys the line further forward, the Greeks lose their fresh water and supply lines, and a night retreat leaves the line vulnerable at sunrise.
Greece prepares for Xerxes: Themistocles shifts Athens toward naval power, and a Hellenic league of only a fraction of the city states forms, its cooperation on a razor's edge, before meeting the invasion at Thermopylae and Artemisium.
Thermopylae: some seven thousand Greeks under the Spartan King Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans repel every attack, even the Immortals, until a betrayal reveals the mountain trail and the remaining Greeks fight to the end.
Artemisium, by tradition fought over the same 3 days as Thermopylae: a fleet under a Spartan commander, mostly Athenian ships under Themistocles, clever tactics to avoid a decisive action, and withdrawal once Thermopylae fell.
Darius, reportedly reminded at meals to remember the Athenians, sends two campaigns: one undone by a storm off Mt Athos and Thracian resistance, then an island-hopping fleet that lays waste to Eretria and reaches Marathon Bay.
Marathon: Miltiades persuades Callimachus to give battle, the outnumbered Greeks reportedly cover the distance at a run for reasons still debated, and the Persians sail for Athens to find the Athenian force waiting.
Classical Athens and Sparta 479 - 386 BC · 58
With James Romm
Prof. James Romm introduces Thucydides and his subject, the Peloponnesian War, as the series leaves Herodotus behind as its main source at what is often seen as the start of the Classical Age.
The Persian successions behind the return of Persia to Greek politics: the assassination of Xerxes, Artaxerxes I and the Egyptian revolt of Inaros, the violent climb of Darius II, and the strategies of Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus.
With the Persian threat gone, suspicions between Greek states return: Athens ostracises Themistocles, Sparta contends with rising democratic factions on the Peloponnese, and both settle on post-war policies over a decade.
Eastern Greeks, angered by Pausanias and the Spartan commanders, hand Athens the leadership, the episode asks how far Athens fostered that support, and a new league holds its first congress on Delos.
Pylos and Sphacteria: Demosthenes fortifies Pylos and repels a Spartan assault, peace talks break down, and under Cleon and Demosthenes the Spartans on Sphacteria surrender, raising fears of helot uprisings.
Nicias pauses for winter and requests cavalry, Hermocrates reforms the Syracusan command, Alcibiades in Sparta prompts sending Gylippus and fortifying Decelea, and a night march by Lamachus seizes Euryelus on the Epipolae Heights.
After Pericles: the comeback of Plistoanax and an alleged bribery scandal at the Oracle of Delphi, Spartan earthquake superstitions and Heraclea, and the disastrous Aetolian campaign of Demosthenes before his victory in Ambracia.
After Mantinea Argos restores democracy, Nicias and Alcibiades unite to exile Hyperbolus in the final use of ostracism, and Athens conquers neutral Melos after the Melian Dialogue and executes its male citizens.
The first year of the Archidamian War: Archidamus ravages Attica to draw Athens into a hoplite battle, Pericles keeps his forces behind the walls, and Athenian ships raid the coast of the Peloponnese.
The Athenian tradition of funeral processions for the war dead and the oration Pericles gives at the end of the first year, recorded in full by Thucydides and meant to convince Athenians the struggle was worth continuing.
Athens sends more forces to besiege Potidaea amid diplomacy in Thrace and Macedon, Sparta sends a mission toward Thrace and Persia, and Pericles faces mounting discontent as the war party gains influence.
After Pericles, new figures such as the demagogue Cleon rise in Athens, Mytilene leads a revolt on Lesbos and seeks Peloponnesian help, and Athens reaches a chilling decision after the revolt fails.
Athens shifts its foreign policy and sends a fleet under Laches and Charoeades to Sicily, capturing cities and stirring local uprisings against Syracuse in a bid to weave a web of influence.
The seventh year of the war, 425 BC: Athens uses treachery to take a city, then captures Cythera and Thyrea and invades Spartan territory, a shift shaped by rivalries between Cleon and Nicias.
The erosion of Athenian advantage: Thucydides is tried and exiled, the successes of Brasidas force a truce with Sparta in 423 BC that is soon breached, and Athens moves on Mende and Scione.
The Peace of Nicias of 421 BCE after a decade of conflict: the events leading to it, its terms, the controversies right after ratification, and why it ultimately failed.
The fall of the Sicilian Expedition, from the eclipse and broken fleet to the collapse at the Asinaris River, asking whether Nicias, democracy, overreach, logistics or contingency best explains it.
The Ionian War begins as Persian silver meets Spartan need: Alcibiades helps flip Chios, Miletus joins the revolt, Tissaphernes negotiates the first Sparta-Persia treaty, and Athens secures Samos by the end of 412 BC.
Ephialtes and his junior Pericles turn the Athenians against Cimon and have him ostracized, the Areopagus sees its powers severely reduced in favour of the council of 500 and the assembly, and Ephialtes falls to political violence.
After the 30 years peace Pericles faces a conservative challenge, tribute lists hint at unrecorded revolts, and a war between Samos and Miletus brings Athenian intervention, a Samian revolt and indirect Persian aid.
The affair of Epidamnus, a colony claimed by both Corinth and Corcyra, compared to the powder keg before World War 1; Corinth loses at sea, and Athens, after two assemblies, decides to assist Corcyra.
Sicily from the Greco-Persian Wars to 427 BCE: the liberation of Syracuse, the tyranny of Hieron and the counsel of Simonides, democratic revival, and the ambitions of Ducetius, setting the board for the later expedition.
After Pylos, Athens targets the allies of Sparta: Demosthenes and Hippocrates plot to capture Megara amid its factions until the plot is exposed, and Boeotians under Pagondas win the Battle of Delium.
Brasidas marches north through Thessaly in 424 BC, uses diplomacy and moderate surrender terms to reach Amphipolis and turn cities against Athens, and negotiates with Perdiccas and Arabaeus along the way.
Alcibiades uses a small force to intimidate the Peloponnese without breaking the peace, King Aegis makes a truce with two Argive generals that nearly costs him everything, and both sides bend festivals and omens.
The Sicilian Expedition leaves the Piraeus amid pride, stretched finances and a leadership trio in disagreement, the Herms are mutilated, Alcibiades sails under suspicion, and the silver Segesta promised dissolves.
Along the Italian coast harbors open while alliances fail, Alcibiades is recalled and slips into exile, Syracuse arms under the urging of Hermocrates, and Nicias baits the Syracusans into a battle won short of decisive victory.
After Sicily Athens counts lost warships, thousands of dead citizens and a strained treasury, creates the proboloi and a 5% tax on maritime trade, while Persia reenters Greek affairs through Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus.
After the snub Athens leaves the Hellenic league, allies with enemies of Sparta, builds the long walls, fights Corinth, and marches out to meet a Spartan force in Boeotia at the battle of Tanagra.
After Egypt Athens makes a truce with Sparta, forces revolting Delian league members back in as tribute payers, and sends Cimon to Cyprus, after which what appears to be some sort of peace with Persia follows.
A congress of the Peloponnesian league votes for war, Spartan ultimatums make demands Athens cannot accept, and Thebes attacks Plataea, an ally of Athens, in an action that goes against its plans.
Why the Peloponnesian War broke out: what Thucydides says about its causes, remote and immediate causes reaching back before the Persian War, and why a search for a single cause ends in disappointment.
The siege of Potidaea, where defenders resort to cannibalism, Archidamus's campaign against Plataea becoming a blockade, and Pericles, temporarily removed from power, succumbing to the plague.
A recap from Pylos to the Peace of Nicias, then Corinth and Elis weighing a break from Sparta for the Argive League, partly shaped by their governments, and secret negotiations between Athens and Sparta.
Siege lines rise around Syracuse until Gylippus arrives and a counterwall blocks them, Lamachus dies, and Nicias writes home that Athens must withdraw entirely or reinforce massively.
After the Persian defeat Themistocles gets the walls of Athens built before Sparta can act, while within 10 years Pausanias and Leotychides, commanders of the victory, fall from grace and are seen as criminals.
Persia assembles forces in southern Anatolia and Cimon leads the league there: a naval battle at the opening of the Eurymedon River, a land battle after, and possibly a second naval engagement.
Athens answers a plea from Inaros, a Libyan king leading Egypt's revolt against Artaxerxes; the siege of Memphis breaks, the Athenians are besieged in the Nile delta, and their force is all but destroyed.
Sparta wins at Tanagra in 457 BC, yet 62 days later Athens strikes into Boeotia and gains much control there, then secures trade connections through the Corinthian gulf until news of Egypt arrives.
Corinth after the tyranny: hosting one of the Pan Hellenic games, early coinage, a large navy within the Peloponnesian league, a negative portrayal in Herodotus shaped by when he wrote, and a role in the First Peloponnesian War.
The second year of the war: Archidamus invades Attica again, Athens sends a fleet against the Peloponnesian shores, and a plague enters through trade networks and spreads through a city crowded by war.
The third year: a fresh Athenian operation in the Chalcidice, a failed Spartan amphibious campaign, two naval victories for Phormio despite being outnumbered, and a Spartan attempt on the Piraeus foiled by weather and hesitancy.
Amphipolis: the overreach of Cleon and the ambush tactics of Brasidas catch Athens off guard, the citizens hail Brasidas as a saviour, and both Athens and Sparta face new challenges.
The Peace of Nicias unravels: Corinth encourages Argos to form a rival bloc, Sparta allies with Boeotia, and Alcibiades deceives Spartan delegates to win an alliance of Athens with Argos, Elis and Mantinea.
Mantinea, 418 BC: Agis leads a Spartan force against the coalition Alcibiades built, a complex manoeuvre opens a gap while some commanders refuse orders, and victory forces Argos back into the Peloponnesian League.
Segesta seeks help and Athens debates: Nicias warns against overreach, Alcibiades promises easy conquest, and demands meant to deter the assembly backfire, growing the expedition from 60 ships to 130 triremes and 5,000 hoplites.
Athens reads the letter from Nicias as a call to commit more and sends Demosthenes and Eurymedon, while Sparta fortifies Decelea and Syracuse cracks the Athenian navy in the Great Harbor.
Syracuse adapts its triremes for the cramped Great Harbor, the night assault of Demosthenes on Epipolae collapses, a lunar eclipse delays departure, and after the final naval defeat crews refuse to man the ships.
The Delian league's first decade under Cimon: campaigns against Persian controlled regions on the Thracian coast, then against other Greeks, and Naxos, attempting to leave, kept in by force, an ominous sign of the league's direction.
Thasos revolts from the Delian league, reportedly for economic reasons, and under siege turns to Sparta, which secretly agrees to attack Athenian territory until a great earthquake devastates the Peloponnese.
Two studies of the darker side of war through Thucydides: the political chaos, internal turmoil and indiscriminate violence of Corcyra, and the tragedy of Plataea.
Sparta secures the Peloponnese and joins the second Sacred War around Delphi, returning oligarchs defeat Athens in Boeotia, and after a Spartan invasion of Attica talks lay the foundation for the 30 years peace.
After Samos, Athens secures the edges of its empire: streamlining the Carian tribute list, courting Byzantium as the key to the Black Sea, and founding colonies in Thrace, until it fits the definition of an empire.
The battle of Sybota: 10 Athenian triremes with orders to engage only if Corcyrean territory is threatened end up in open combat, both sides claim victory, and the 30 years peace is breached.
Athens prepares for war with Corinth: it demands that Potidaea, a Corinthian colony, take down its walls and ends up besieging it, imposes the Megarian Decree, and Corinth urges Sparta to act.
Corinth and other aggrieved allies make their case at Sparta, uninvited Athenians urge caution, King Archidamus speaks for the peace party against an ephor of the war party, and the vote finds Athens in breach.
The earthquake of 464 BC devastates Sparta and the helots of Messenia revolt; Sparta calls on allies, then sends only the Athenians home, a snub marking open hostility as Cimon's popularity declines.
Greek Life, Thought and the Wider World across the centuries · 17
With Owen Rees
Dr Owen Rees on his book Military Departures, Homecomings and Death in Classical Athens: how hoplites left for war and came home, how the war dead were treated, and competing theories on trauma in ancient soldiers.
With Yvonne Korshak
Prof. Yvonne Korshak on her historical novel Pericles and Aspasia, set in Athens before the Peloponnesian War: weaving historical events into the narrative, and the interplay between history and fiction.
Prof. Paul Cartledge on the Spartan mirage: education, political structure and military, the unique status of Spartan women, and later uses of Sparta, from the movie 300 to the French Revolution and North America.
With Lantern Jack
Mark Selleck and Jack Visnjic, known as Lantern Jack, trace ancient Greek philosophy from the pre-Socratics through Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to Stoicism, Epicureanism and skepticism in the Hellenistic period.
With Vanessa Gorman
Prof. Vanessa Gorman on Miletus, which Herodotus called the ornament of Ionia: its Bronze Age connections, its Archaic affluence, its decline under Lydian and Persian rule, and her open-source Greek course.
With Myke Cole
Myke Cole on his book The Bronze Lie, which peels back the myth of Spartan warrior supremacy; just about no Spartan writing survives, so everything known comes from outsiders looking in.
With James Diggle
Prof. James Diggle on the search for Homer's Ithaca: long-standing doubts that modern Ithaki is the island of the Odyssey, the theory of Robert Bittlestone, and the Odysseus Unbound foundation that continues his work.
With Tad Crawford
Tad Crawford on his novel On Wine-Dark Seas, set in Ithaca in the era after Odysseus against the backdrop of the epic cycle, and how he works the Iliad, the Odyssey and mythology into a modern narrative.
With Mark Adams
Author Mark Adams on his book Meet Me in Atlantis: what he learnt about Plato's tale of the lost city, and the many people he met during his research, whose stories he also tells.
Who Herodotus was, as far as the known information allows, what his Histories covers beyond war, from geography and ethnography to folklore, its division into nine books, and the potential sources he used.
Why Herodotus gets called the Father of Lies: the reliability of his wide-ranging sources and reporting, and modern clickbait arguments, often misrepresenting him, on gold-digging ants, griffins and the millions of Persians at Thermopylae.
Greek colonisation of Sicily goes on, with colonies founding their own, tyrants emerging as in the mother cities, and Carthage leading the opposition until it secures much of its trade interests by the end of the 6th century.
Sicily comes into the Greek periphery: trade returns, Greek cities found colonies to relieve overpopulation, and three indigenous cultures and the Phoenicians for the most part coexist peacefully during the 8th century BC.
Anatolia before the Greeks: over 1 million years of habitation, Çatalhöyük and Göbekli Tepe questioning views of hunter-gatherers, the Hittites and their capitol Hattusa, and descendants of the Mycenaeans settling the west coast.
After the Hittites vanish Anatolia fragments; Greek cities dot the western coast and form Ionia, fall under Croesus and the Lydians, and pass to Cyrus the Great, whose Persians become their new master.
The origins of Macedon: Balkan migrations, a Bronze Age tribe Herodotus calls the Makednoi, the official Argead descent from Heracles and Argos, and expansion out of the Pierian Mountains by the reign of Alexander I.
The Thracians, seen by the Greeks as barbarians and in truth a loose collection of tribes that Herodotus judged invincible if united, from Balkan origins to Greek colonies on their coasts in the 7th and 6th centuries.